Billy Rankin’s School of Rock

Notes for students of rock’n'roll from the master of morning classes
Foreword by Scottish rock DJ Tom Russell

For five years former Nazareth guitarist Billy Rankin has taught on-air morning classes to students of rock’n'roll history via his Rock Radio breakfast show.

Now presenter of The Blues Magazine Show on TeamRock Radio, he’s written down some of his favourite study notes: tales of wine, women and song starring big names like Ozzy Osbourne, Guns n’Roses, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith, Metallica, Status Quo, Ted Nugent, the Who, REM, the Beatles and many others.

Billy even shares recollections from his own time as a touring musician with Nazareth and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, plus his formative years on the Glasgow pub rock scene.

Chapters cover everything from big names’ early days through lifestyles of excess, studio battles, fallouts and breakups, tour dramas, unusual inspirations and trouble with the law. Billy marks a few rock’n'roll institutions along the way and lists some of his all-time favourite anecdotes.

This book is stuffed with hundreds of short stories which will entertain and inform you, so you can impress your mates or stomp the pub-quiz competition with your encyclopaedic knowledge of the world of rock.

It’s a great memento of Billy’s daily School of Rock feature, which kept audiences listening for around 4000 hours of live radio.

Billy worked with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band before finding fame with Nazareth at the age of 17 and touring the world with them. He worked and/or drank with many of the stars of his book. After a successful solo career he became the host of cult station Rock Radio’s breakfast show.

Foreword by Scottish rock radio legend Tom Russell, who’s known and worked with Billy for many years.

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About Billy

Billy Rankin was a member of Nazareth from 1980 to 1983 then again from 1990 to 1994. Before finding fame with the Fife rock heroes he played with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and went on to a successful solo career. He worked and/or drank with many of the stars of his book and became the host of cult station Rock Radio’s breakfast show from its launch in 2007 until its "rebrand" in 2011.